What is Earnings Based Funding?

Jurna is offering a new type of education financial aid called Earnings Based Funding that leverages only a student's future earnings potential to determine funding. It is based on a complex modeling system that allows Jurna to forecast a student's outcome and advance money based on the forecast, rather than looking back at a family's past success.

Learn how Jurna Earnings Based Funding Works

How Jurna is Different from Traditional Private Loans

 A traditional student loan uses credit scores or co-signers to determine interest rates and then assigns a principal loan balance tied to a fixed or variable interest rate for repayment.

 Jurna earnings based funding leverages only a student's future earnings potential and promised percent and years of future earnings to determine the funding amounts. Jurna funding is meant to ease the burden of repayment by calculating the repayment total as a percentage of your future income only when you are employed.  No employment, no payment and no compounding interest.

How To Apply for Jurna Earnings Based FUNDING 

1. Students will state various aspects of their academic profile, like school, major, GPA, and expected graduation year, and the amount of funding they are requesting. Note: Jurna will never ask for a credit score or a co-signer.

2. Jurna’s proprietary modeling will show the available funding amount, suggested  repayment terms (% of income for # of years), and repayment safeguards

3. Students will choose the repayment term (the percent of their future income) they are most comfortable with, and sign any necessary funding agreements and disclosures.

How Jurna Repayment works

Repayment begins when a student earns their first paycheck after leaving college. If a student takes the summer after school to travel and doesn't start a job until September, their repayment starts in September. Note: Students will be required to upload income verification online each year.

Repyament Process:

1. Students will report their job offer to Jurna
2. Students will receive a document to provide to their employer stating a percentage of income to deduct and transfer from each payroll. Just like a healthcare, 401k, or tax withholding, we find pulling out the payment before a student's home check helps them budget better for their future.
3. While students are employed, a percentage of their income will be deducted for the agreed-upon number of years (payment periods). 
4. If a student becomes unemployed, the repayment and repayment month clock stops until they are employed again.
   

No Loan Principle, means no compounding debt

One thing Jurna has learned from students is the fear of compounding interest on a principal. And while time itself is in effect interest, Jurna funding does not have a principal that accrues interest at a set rate each month or year. You simply must pay the percentage of income you agreed to over the agreed-upon payment periods. You might hear Jurna refer to an effective interest rate, which is to be used only for comparison sake against traditional loans, not for calculating repayment.

Jurna Funding Safeguards

There are several safeguards to ensure that students won’t be making payments they can’t afford. 

Minimum income threshold

There’s a minimum income threshold of $35,000, meaning that if a student makes less than that or loses their job, they won’t be responsible for payments until they secure a job above that threshold.

No payment if unemployed 

If a student takes a break from their full-time employment for grad school or a family emergency, or is laid off from a job and unemployed for some time, their repayment period will pause during that time and resume once they are re-employed above the minimum income threshold.

Capped Repayment

If a student happens to be wildly successful and starts making a lot of money out of the gate, we don’t want to punish them for that. For example, there’s a maximum effective APR, which is capped at a set percentage. Therefore, they'll have the option of closing their funding agreement in full at any time at the maximum APR. And if at any point during your committed repayment period they hit that maximum APR, their commitment will be considered fulfilled, and payments will stop for good.

Why Jurna's FUnding Model is Better

The reason we ask for things like major and GPA is because of our proprietary pricing model. Jurna funding recipients are pooled with similar students who have similar profiles with comparable job and income projections. That allows the market to fund Jurna students based only on future potential. 

Jurna’s unique model allows us to offer funding to students from a variety of backgrounds with better terms than many other private lenders, and we believe that earnings based funding is the healthiest alternative to funding your education.